Fitness boxing

Professional boxers are amongst the world’s fittest athletes. It takes both incredible strength and lightening speed to be a top boxer. Fitness boxing has taken the best features of a boxer’s training schedule and has developed them into a training programme that is suitable for the average person to increase their strength and fitness levels.

In fitness boxing you train in every facet of boxing except full contact sparring. By using the specialized boxing equipment for resistance exercises your musculoskeletal system becomes incredibly strong and the central nervous system is trained to faster and more efficient response to punching drills. The training is extremely intense – many of the exercises take no more that two to three minutes followed by a one minute rest break to restore your oxygen levels.

Participants work at between eighty five to ninety percent of their maximum heart rate thus ensuring a sixty percent anaerobic workout. Fitness boxing concentrates on strength, speed and short bursts of powerful activity. Body fat is kept at a minimum.

Weights are used together with other boxing specific equipment in movements that burn off the maximum number of calories while increasing the body’s lean muscle mass. Long distance runners find that fitness boxing distributes the training throughout the body thus cutting down on injuries and giving knee and leg joints a break while they are still getting a concentrated workout.

There has been a tremendous surge in interest in fitness boxing worldwide and many health clubs now offer classes. Boxing gyms that cater for the person who is more interested in the fitness than the competition also provide training sessions.

Another interesting result of fitness boxing is the mental toughness that is developed as the participants learn to cope with the intense demands of tough drills that push them further into their anaerobic zone. As a consequence they are better able to deal with other severe endurance routines.